Glasgow to Edinburgh via Caledonian Canal Coast


Glasgow to Edinburgh via Caledonian Canal

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Scotland's vast west coast.

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Bringing the industrial revolution to this galaxy of inlets and islands

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was an epic engineering adventure.

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Tough little boats were built

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and massive waterways were dug,

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shipping short cuts connecting coast to coast.

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This extraordinary enterprise of genius and folly

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began some 200 years ago,

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in Scotland's great maritime cities.

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Bold pioneers steamed out from Glasgow in boats

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both great and small. Now we're following in their wake.

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And the customary crew have signed on for the voyage.

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Miranda explores an undersea worm city.

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Wonderful how they grow, they're just like gnarly tree roots.

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Mark is in search of Scotland's lost tribe.

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Look down there, so that's definitely Pictish.

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Nick discovers how Britain's boldest waterway

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was built through the heart of the Highlands.

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Alice seeks artistic inspiration in splendid isolation.

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And I'm messing about in boats, big ones...

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..and wee ones.

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This is coast to coast.

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We've crossed from western Ireland over to Glasgow.

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Our new adventure takes a remarkable watery short-cut right through

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the heart of the Highlands, from west coast to east coast.

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It's a journey that will leave us in Edinburgh,

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a mere 40 miles from where we begin.

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Glasgow was put on the map in the 18th century by Scotland's first millionaires,

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merchants whose wealth was founded on trade across the sea.

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Their artery to the wider world,

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the River Clyde, became famous for shipbuilding.

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Most of the old docks are overgrown now, but at the industry's height in the early-1900s

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this was home to 31 shipyards squeezed into a 15-mile stretch of river -

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60,000 workers churning out world-class ships.

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And I've come to the birthplace of the greatest of the Clyde-built liners.

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It's hard to believe walking along past all these sapling trees

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and the modern buildings in the background,

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but this was once the mighty John Brown's Shipyard, the birthplace of The Queen Mary.

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The Queen Mary began life in December 1930 as hull number 534.

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Slowly, the ship planned as the world's foremost passenger experience took shape.

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Launches on the Clyde were always celebrated, but none more so than The Queen Mary.

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As she slid into the water on the 26th September 1934, a mighty cheer echoed around the river.

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My mum and dad were both one year old in 1934 when The Queen Mary was launched,

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and they were both brought down by their respective families to witness the launch.

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Two years later The Queen Mary clinched the Blue Riband

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for fastest passage to America,

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taking just 4 days and 27 minutes to reach New York.

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These supermodels might have provided the glamour for the world stage, but the Clyde was also home

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to some different characters that the locals fell in love with - the Clyde puffers,

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tough little working boats that connected Glasgow to the Western Isles.

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The steam-powered puffers took coal,

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timber and grain out to Britain's furthest-flung communities.

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For the myriad of isles scattered the length of Scotland's west coast

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the puffers were a lifeline.

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And their crews became local heroes,

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immortalised by writer Neil Munro

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in his creation of skipper Para Handy.

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Aye, Dougie, she's making good speed there, we must be doing ten knots at least.

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Aye, and so she should, seeing the steam's 90% water and 10% whisky.

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The puffers are all gone now...

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well, almost all.

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WHISTLE SOUNDS

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This is the Vic 32,

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the last surviving coal-fired steam-powered Clyde puffer.

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You know, there are some things I get to do, some places I get to go,

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and there's only one word to describe them, and the word is...magical.

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Look at that, that's all the atmosphere you need.

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I wish you could smell it, there's this hot mineral oil smell,

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and you can just hear the beating heart, it's like a living thing,

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it's not a machine, it's alive.

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Gorgeous!

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Few of the men who sailed these boats westward remain.

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Stewart Pearson is one of them. He was a deck hand on the puffers.

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What was the life like for you? How were the crew with you?

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We were a cheery lot. The skipper had a great sense of humour,

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the mate was a bit of a character.

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But for all these guys were sort of rough diamonds, in bed at night in our bunks, Willie Stewart,

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the mate, would read Robert Burns, he had a Burns book and he used to read this every night.

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-That's quite cultured.

-It was very cultured, I thought, it's really amazing, he loved Burns.

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You kind of get the impression

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that the skippers were a law unto themselves, and risk-takers.

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Yes, they were, they did their own thing. When they were sailing on these, between these islands,

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they did it by sort of pilotage, they didn't have charts, as such.

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They had their sturdy boats, but the puffer crews relied on a short cut

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to the isles, a seaway carved through the land - the Crinan Canal.

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For traders heading out from Glasgow, the construction of the Crinan Canal

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meant they could cut through a fearsome obstacle

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to the western seaboard.

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Before the canal's coast-to-coast route,

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boats had to navigate round the Mull of Kintyre,

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a 240-mile trek through some treacherous waters.

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So coming through here by contrast

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is just a walk in the park, I suppose?

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Och, absolutely.

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This is great, that's what the famous song says,

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"The Crinan Canal for me, don't want the wild rolling sea."

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# The Crinan Canal for me

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# I don't like the wild raging sea

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# The big falling breakers Would give me the shakers

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# The Crinan Canal for me It's the Crinan Canal... #

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The Crinan Canal starts life

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running parallel to the coast before cutting inland.

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It sliced journey times to the west coast from one-and-a-half days

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to just a few hours.

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It might have started as an industrial trade way,

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but it's now become known as Britain's most beautiful shortcut.

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# There's no shark or whale That would make you turn pale

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# Or shiver and shake At the knee... #

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Even so, it's not exactly plain sailing.

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Furthest away one, please, yeah.

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There are 15 locks to get through.

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It's all hands on deck,

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and off deck,

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and back on deck, again and again.

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WHISTLE TOOTS

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But it's a magical journey.

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All too soon you reach the last lock on the Crinan Canal.

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Once you're through that,

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there's nothing between you and the open sea of Scotland's west coast.

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A constellation of islands beckons,

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only a small fraction of them inhabited.

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This is Britain's wildest frontier.

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Many of the scattered communities out here once depended on the irrepressible Clyde puffers

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to bring them the necessities,

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and to export their goods to far-away markets.

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On one group of tiny islands off the Argyll coast,

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the locals' export activities left some big holes in their lives.

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Hermione is on a voyage to see what vanished.

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She's heading off to the little isle of Easdale.

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Easdale's one of the slate islands, so-called because of roof slate...

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lots and lots of it.

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Welcome to the islands that roofed the world.

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I'm meeting local author, Mary Withall,

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who's researched her home's curious claim to fame.

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-Here we are in Easdale.

-Yes.

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There seems to be an awful lot of slate still here, not all of it's gone.

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It is the result of the slate-quarrying activity.

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When they pulled the slate out of the ground only about 60% of what

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they actually produced was usable slate, the rest of it was waste.

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It gives you a sense of how much actually must have been quarried.

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Yes, indeed, nine million slates a year

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at the peak of production, which was about 1860.

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Nine million slates a year - that's an awful lot of roofs!

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The Vikings may have used the slate for gravestones

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but it wasn't until the 18th century that the slate became big business.

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Men began chipping away at the ground beneath their feet,

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and steadily the holes got deeper.

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The quarrying was so intensive,

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the landscape looks moth-eaten on a massive scale.

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Big chunks of Easdale have been removed slate by slate.

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On nearby Belnahua, the quarries in the middle took away

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so much material, the island is now almost as much water as land.

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And this damage was done by hand.

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Quarrymen worked with picks, shovels and muscle,

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shifting slate loosened by gunpowder.

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The waste from their labours lies in piles all over the island.

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If you look at the slate close up you can see that it's made up

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of lots of thin layers, it's got a beautiful bluey-black colour.

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Now, it's formed from mud that was originally laid down

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on an ancient ocean floor more than 500 million years ago,

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and that mud was then heated and compressed

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and formed a rock, this slate,

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that splits very easily into fine sheets, making it absolutely perfect

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for making hardy roof tiles.

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Easdale is tiny, yet the village is surrounded by no fewer than seven quarries,

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and as you tour the island, suddenly they come into view.

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Oh, wow,

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just look at that!

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Beautiful, clear pool.

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You can see over there all the slate banked up and disappearing down into

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the water, there's something almost a bit magical about it.

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All that history preserved under water.

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It's just beautiful.

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There's still plenty of slate here, so where did all the quarriers go?

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Iain McDougall from the local museum has done some digging of his own.

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What happened at the end,

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what led to the demise of this whole industry?

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The initiating factor would be the gale in November 1881,

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the once-in-a-century gale.

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Southwesterly, coming from that direction, howling gale,

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hurricane-force winds, massive seas,

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crashing in, filled the quarries with water.

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The sea was reputed to be actually coming over the island,

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running through the houses and out into the harbour on the other side.

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Now, if you bear in mind in those days the quarry companies did not

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supply tools or anything like that,

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the men supplied their own tools, where were their tools?

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Under a 120 feet of water.

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So the island was destitute.

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No tools no work, no work no pay, no pay no food.

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Quarrying limped on until the early 1900's, but as a major industry

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it was all over.

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Fishing became more important,

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and in the 1950s Easdale was wired up with electricity.

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Tourism brought new work,

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and descendants of the original slate quarriers began to return.

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Now Easdale has about 60 residents.

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There are people here but no cars,

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so it's a great place to let kids run wild,

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and they've even found a use for all the abandoned slate.

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Easdale has re-invented itself

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as the stone-skimming capital of the world.

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The championships are held here every autumn.

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And I've got a couple of experts to show me their skimming secrets.

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You need to get a particular piece of slate, do we?

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Oh, excellent! And how do you stand - is it all in the stance?

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You put your foot there,

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and back foot there,

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and lean back and move forward with your arm

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-and then let loose.

-What about holding the stone?

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You hold it like that, your thumb on top so it's...

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-Like that, is that OK?

-Like that.

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-OK, Alan, you go.

-OK.

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Brilliant! OK, let me give it a go.

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OK...

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No, that was hopeless!

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And I wasn't trying to do a rubbish one, honestly.

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Oh!

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-Quite good!

-Not bad!

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The slate quarriers of Easdale made the best of what they had to hand.

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It's an time-old tale for west coast folk who toiled to build communities on such tricky terrain.

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As we cross back over to the mainland, the mountains rear up.

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Much of this coast is sparsely inhabited,

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like here at Loch Creran.

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There are no sizeable settlements

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on the shores of this loch, at least not above the water.

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Miranda's seeking the citizens beneath the waves.

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Loch Creran is a conservation area

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because of its incredible marine life,

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but what makes it so special

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are some very shy tube worms that are busy building their own city

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out there under the water - and this I've got to see.

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These waters conceal some curious little worms

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that build tube-shaped shells around themselves.

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Those tube worms have created

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their own version of a tropical coral reef,

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the largest of its kind in the northern hemisphere.

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It's down there somewhere, and I've got to find it.

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-Hi there.

-Hi, how you doing?

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My guides in Loch Creran are David Hughes, a marine biologist, and Emily Venables, an oceanographer.

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David, it's a big old loch - where exactly are we going to find the worms?

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Well, we'll find them just over there in the shallows,

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all the way along the south shore.

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This loch's global claim to fame is down to the shells that the worms build around themselves.

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Each individual worm secretes a hard calcified tube around itself

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that it uses to protect itself.

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Normally, we find these worms just growing as single individuals

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on stones or bits of shell,

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but in a very small number of places

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you get large numbers of worms settling together, growing on top of each other.

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Those hard tubes are the building blocks of an underwater city, and I want to see it.

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Emily Venables is my tour guide.

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-OK?

-OK!

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'And here we are.'

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What's incredible about these tubular reefs

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is that there's just silt everywhere on the bottom of the loch here,

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and suddenly you come across this little oasis.

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'Inside these tubes is a creature much like an earthworm,

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'but the only part you can see is its delicate fan of tentacles,

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'used to filter food from the water,

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'and the slightest disturbance causes them to pull back lightning-fast

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'into their hard tubes for protection.'

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I love it when you just swim over them and they all...

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It's like fireworks in reverse - they all just dart in very, very quickly.

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'Their hiding places are built on top of each other creating the worm city.'

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It's wonderful how they grow, they're just like gnarly tree roots.

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And incredibly tall as well, some of these look like two or three foot high.

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'These shy little worms fashion their tubes out of the same hard material

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'as other seashells - calcium carbonate.

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'But because they form vertical branch structures, they build up a reef

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'where other creatures come to hide or hunt.'

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There's so many things living here.

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We've got hermit crabs, we've got anemones, we've got sea urchins,

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just a whole cast of characters living in this little city.

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It's absolutely brilliant, teeming with life.

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That's what we wanted to see, the scallop just swimming away,

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it's like a pair of comedy sort of wind-up false teeth set.

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These are queen scallops, they're fascinating.

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They suck in some water and then they squirt it out really quickly like a jet.

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There's a huge amount of marine life living in this one little spot.

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And if it wasn't for the tube worms there wouldn't be all these creatures here.

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'Mooring boats and fishing are restricted in Loch Creran to protect the reefs.

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'We should treasure our underwater worm city.'

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Worms aren't the only big builders in these parts - the people have grand designs too.

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Navigating these waters by boat can be fraught with dangers.

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To sail from the west coast to the east coast

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means braving the storm-battered northern coastline of Scotland,

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a treacherous stretch of water barring the passage to the North Sea.

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So what if there were a short cut for ships

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right through the centre of Scotland?

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Well, here is that short cut -

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the Caledonian Canal.

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Started in 1803, it was one of Britain's biggest, boldest building projects.

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A mighty waterway running for 62 miles from the Atlantic

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to the North Sea through the mountainous heart of the Highlands.

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And we're embarking on a journey along it.

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It starts with a tight squeeze,

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which looks a little too small for today's ocean-going cruise ships, like this one I'm on.

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I tell you, this is going to have to be a neat trick.

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This is a big ship

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and it's got to travel all the way across country

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in a space no wider than that.

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The Caledonian Canal wasn't built for narrow boats but for much larger sea-going vessels.

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Still, ships have grown quite a bit in the last 200 years.

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No sooner have we got through obstacle number one,

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than we're confronted with eight lock gates in a row.

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This is known as Neptune's Staircase.

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Like everything to do with this waterway, it's on a colossal scale.

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Neptune's Staircase took 900 men nearly four years to construct.

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Step by step, the 728-tonne Lord of the Glens

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is raised 64 feet into the air

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to begin its voyage through the middle of Scotland out to the east coast.

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How was this waterway built, and why was it built?

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Nick is on the trail of an epic tale.

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Travelling along this canal you start to get a sense of the scale -

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it was an extraordinary undertaking.

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The plans were drawn up just over 200 years ago by Thomas Telford.

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Telford's design for this waterway cleverly combined bold engineering

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with Scotland's spectacular landscape.

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Just look at this incredible view -

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probably the most stupendous valley in the British Isles...

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the Great Glen.

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Right, here's a map of northern Scotland.

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Glasgow is down here, and here is the Great Glen slashing across Scotland

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from one side to the other, from the Atlantic here to the North Sea here.

0:24:350:24:39

In the bed of the Great Glen are three freshwater lochs, Loch Lochy,

0:24:390:24:43

Loch Oich and the largest of them, Loch Ness.

0:24:430:24:47

What Telford wanted to do - and here is his master plan - is link them all up by canals.

0:24:470:24:54

Here's Loch Lochy, here's Loch Oich and here's Loch Ness,

0:24:540:24:57

so he had to create canals

0:24:570:24:59

here, here, here

0:24:590:25:01

and here - four of them.

0:25:010:25:02

If he could do that he could create a waterway, which linked the North Sea with the Atlantic.

0:25:020:25:07

This short cut was planned to slash journey times and protect shipping

0:25:110:25:16

from storms at sea, but there was another even greater prize at stake.

0:25:160:25:22

Some 200 years ago the Highlands were in crisis.

0:25:220:25:27

For years landowners had been throwing tenants off their land to

0:25:270:25:30

make way for sheep farming, a period known as the Highland Clearances.

0:25:300:25:37

People were leaving in their droves,

0:25:370:25:40

their abandoned homes swallowed by the heather.

0:25:400:25:44

There was a village here once, now it's gone back to nature.

0:25:440:25:49

So many people were emigrating that the Government became anxious that the Highlands would soon be empty -

0:25:490:25:54

people needed jobs as an incentive to stay.

0:25:540:25:58

Bright idea - how about getting them digging?

0:25:580:26:01

The Government put dispossessed Highlanders to work digging the Caledonian Canal.

0:26:040:26:10

In the days before heavy machinery, carving this monster waterway

0:26:100:26:14

would keep thousands busy with backbreaking work.

0:26:140:26:18

The state poured vast sums of money into the enterprise.

0:26:180:26:23

Here was a job creation scheme on a massive scale.

0:26:230:26:27

I'm meeting historian Anthony Burton, who knows what was expected of the novice navvies.

0:26:290:26:35

-Hello.

-Hello.

0:26:350:26:37

This is a beautiful spot. I've seen some of the canal now, this is like

0:26:390:26:42

the Panama Canal, this is something that changed British geography.

0:26:420:26:46

Absolutely, this was THE civil engineering triumph

0:26:460:26:48

of the age and it's all down to this, the spade.

0:26:480:26:52

This was done by blokes, and it was blokes from the Highlands.

0:26:520:26:55

The Highland Clearances, the Highlands were desperately poor -

0:26:550:26:59

in one day, 200 Highlanders appeared en masse having walked all the way

0:26:590:27:04

-from Skye to come and work on this canal.

-They were desperate for work.

0:27:040:27:07

They were desperate for work but they had to reach the standard of the professional navvy

0:27:070:27:12

and the professional navvy, they reckoned, could shift 12 cubic yards a day.

0:27:120:27:16

Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,

0:27:180:27:23

10, 11, 12.

0:27:230:27:26

Right, OK, so come on back. Now if you're an experienced navvy,

0:27:260:27:30

you're going to be digging a trench roughly waist-deep from here to there.

0:27:300:27:37

-Every day.

-Every single day, do you want to have a go to see how much hard work's involved?

0:27:370:27:42

-All right, all right.

-Be my guest, carry on.

0:27:420:27:44

I suppose this is probably what they did, just take the turf off first.

0:27:460:27:50

Yes, that's right.

0:27:500:27:53

So this soft Londoner

0:27:530:27:57

-is getting a bit knackered already.

-I'm not surprised.

0:27:570:28:00

You're getting into the rough stuff now, getting some stones down there.

0:28:000:28:03

-One more clod and...

-It's going to get harder and harder as you go down.

0:28:030:28:07

I'm just trying to imagine, given that I'm soaked in sweat and my back's aching,

0:28:080:28:12

what it meant to the people who were obliged to dig it by hand.

0:28:120:28:16

What would you say, if you met one of them now, if you could flip back through time?

0:28:160:28:20

Is this better than starving? Because that was the other option.

0:28:200:28:23

Or would you rather get on a ship and go to Canada?

0:28:230:28:27

I'd keep digging, I think.

0:28:270:28:29

-I think I would too.

-Even though it's absolutely back-breaking.

0:28:290:28:32

-But I've done enough...

-I'm sure you have!

0:28:320:28:34

..to know how incredibly tough they must have been to pull it off.

0:28:340:28:38

They dug and they dug for 19 years along a total of 22 miles,

0:28:410:28:47

they dug this channel, 15-feet deep.

0:28:470:28:51

Little by little the canal breathed life back into the Highland economy,

0:28:520:28:57

but the navvies couldn't have achieved this gigantic task without some help from nature -

0:28:570:29:03

a series of freshwater lochs along the length of the Great Glen.

0:29:030:29:09

Connecting these natural waterways was the key to completing the Caledonian Canal.

0:29:120:29:18

On their route was the mightiest loch of them all, Scotland's most famous...

0:29:210:29:27

Loch Ness.

0:29:270:29:29

Deep enough to hold the fresh water from every lake in England and Wales put together.

0:29:330:29:39

So enormous it's said that every human on planet Earth could fit beneath its surface...

0:29:440:29:52

three times over!

0:29:520:29:55

Adrian Shine originally came to these waters to hunt the Loch Ness monster.

0:30:000:30:06

What he did find was a fascinating insight into the boats

0:30:060:30:10

that once used this waterway as part of the Caledonian Canal coast-to-coast short cut.

0:30:100:30:17

-This is rather exciting.

-It is, isn't it?

0:30:180:30:20

Does it matter which way into the water it goes?

0:30:200:30:22

No, no, just...just pop it in.

0:30:220:30:26

This is the remote camera technology Adrian used to explore the deep.

0:30:270:30:32

-Now lower away, lower away.

-Watching the screen,

0:30:350:30:38

that's it, watching the screen.

0:30:380:30:40

Skimming across the floor of the loch with his underwater camera in 2002,

0:30:430:30:49

Adrian stumbled across something that, for me, is an intriguing clue

0:30:490:30:53

to the fate of the Caledonian Canal.

0:30:530:30:56

You know, suddenly this wall of wood came up in front of us,

0:30:560:31:00

there was the name - Pansy, and the Banff registration number.

0:31:000:31:06

Fascinating, because often with wrecks

0:31:060:31:08

you have trouble identifying them.

0:31:080:31:10

Well, we didn't have any trouble with this.

0:31:100:31:12

The registration tells us that Pansy wasn't a grand trading ship,

0:31:140:31:18

she was a sail-powered fishing boat much like this one.

0:31:180:31:23

The Pansy foundered in Loch Ness whilst using the Caledonian Canal

0:31:230:31:28

to reach new fishing grounds.

0:31:280:31:30

Fishing boats found the canal useful but finding the wreck of a large

0:31:310:31:35

merchant ship in Loch Ness is about as likely as spotting the monster.

0:31:350:31:41

Within a few years of the Caledonian Canal's completion in 1822

0:31:410:31:46

many merchant vessels had grown too big to use this coast-to-coast short cut.

0:31:460:31:53

It never became the mighty trade route that was planned.

0:31:530:31:57

If that wasn't bad enough the project had gone three times over budget.

0:31:590:32:04

Many thought it was a white elephant, a colossal waste of public money,

0:32:040:32:11

but approaching the end of the canal here at Inverness,

0:32:110:32:14

I can't help feeling that its success shouldn't be measured in pounds and pence.

0:32:140:32:20

Yes! This is the very last lock on the Caledonian Canal,

0:32:250:32:31

so that's salt water, that's the Moray Firth, and out there is the North Sea.

0:32:310:32:38

You know, this isn't just a great waterway, it's a great survivor.

0:32:380:32:43

Over the years many people have come up with many reasons to close it down,

0:32:430:32:48

but here's one to keep it open - it's an awesome achievement.

0:32:480:32:53

We're just over half way on our epic 400-mile journey around and through Scotland.

0:33:000:33:07

The Caledonian Canal has taken us from west coast to east. This is the North Sea.

0:33:070:33:13

And there's another huge construction project in these parts,

0:33:150:33:20

one that was designed to terrify the Highlanders into submission.

0:33:200:33:23

After the Jacobite Uprising and the bloody defeat of the rebels at the Battle of Culloden in April 1746,

0:33:260:33:34

the British government was determined to suppress future conflict at any cost.

0:33:340:33:39

Part of the solution they arrived at is hidden in here.

0:33:390:33:44

The entrance wasn't built for a warm welcome.

0:33:440:33:47

It's the gateway to a fearsome weapon

0:33:490:33:51

built by the British government to suppress Highland rebellion.

0:33:510:33:56

Welcome to Fort George.

0:33:560:33:58

It's as awe-inspiring now as it was daunting to Highlanders when it was built.

0:34:060:34:11

Any who harboured thoughts of rebellion had only to gaze upon these ramparts to think again.

0:34:110:34:19

It held a force of 1,600 soldiers.

0:34:200:34:24

Inside here, somehow, it still feels a little bit like 1769, the year the place was completed.

0:34:270:34:34

Even then, though, it was ready and prepared for a war that was already over.

0:34:340:34:39

Just like the Caledonian Canal, Fort George was a white elephant.

0:34:410:34:45

It went twice over budget and took so long to build that by the time it was finished

0:34:450:34:51

the threat of a Highland uprising had evaporated.

0:34:510:34:54

But the fort isn't the only legacy here of rebellious times.

0:34:560:35:01

The world-famous Black Watch Regiment

0:35:010:35:04

was established in the aftermath of the Jacobite Rebellion in 1715

0:35:040:35:08

from Highlanders loyal to the British crown.

0:35:080:35:11

Now they use Fort George as their base for operations all around the world.

0:35:110:35:15

The Black Watch had originally been set up to watch the Highlands.

0:35:170:35:22

Now the conflict in Afghanistan means their eyes are on lands far from these shores.

0:35:220:35:28

Across the water, Invergordon's where oil rigs come for maintenance,

0:35:440:35:49

but the boom times of the North Sea are over.

0:35:490:35:52

New business depends on finding more oil.

0:35:520:35:55

Out in the deep ocean the drillship Stena Carron is searching out fresh reserves two miles under the waves.

0:35:590:36:06

The enormous depth and pressure mean the oil men use remotely-operated vehicles.

0:36:100:36:16

When these ROV's are on downtime it's a rare chance for marine biologist Daniel Jones

0:36:160:36:22

to turn the remote control cameras on some extraordinary creatures,

0:36:220:36:26

which thrive 4,000 feet underwater.

0:36:260:36:29

This is what it's all about.

0:36:300:36:31

A huge amount of life down here, despite the crushing pressures

0:36:310:36:35

and the low temperatures.

0:36:350:36:36

That's great, it's such a beautiful animal, it's amazing to see it swimming like that.

0:36:380:36:42

Quite unusual behaviour for an octopus

0:36:420:36:44

but these deep-sea species often have interesting and unusual behaviours.

0:36:440:36:49

So this is the giant sea spider called Colossendeis.

0:36:540:36:58

Quite unusual to get animals this big on the sea floor.

0:36:580:37:00

These sea spiders can grow up to about this size.

0:37:000:37:03

We've found this anemone that we're really interested to capture,

0:37:050:37:08

we want to have a look at it under a microscope in a laboratory.

0:37:080:37:11

So we're going to use the ROV to deploy one of these sampling tubes

0:37:110:37:16

and capture over the top of the animal.

0:37:160:37:18

It's an extremely delicate task trying to catch this anemone,

0:37:180:37:21

which is about this size,

0:37:210:37:24

in a little core tube with an ROV that weighs two tonnes. That's it.

0:37:240:37:29

Oil might be today's bounty of the North Sea,

0:37:400:37:43

but in the early-1800s these shores were teeming with herring.

0:37:430:37:48

A building boom began to cash in on the silver darlings of the sea.

0:37:490:37:54

A new fishing community was planned on the Moray Firth at Burghead.

0:37:550:38:00

Mark's there to discover what was built...and what was lost.

0:38:020:38:06

This has all the hallmarks of a 200-year-old new town.

0:38:080:38:13

Look at this, rows of little cottages all built at the same time.

0:38:130:38:18

These streets are the work

0:38:200:38:22

of town planners from the Georgian era.

0:38:220:38:25

And at the business-end of town, a rather splendid harbour.

0:38:250:38:32

Starting in 1805, the town and harbour were built to land herring,

0:38:320:38:38

part of improving life for the Highlanders.

0:38:380:38:41

But it's not all quite as it appears.

0:38:410:38:45

From another point of view this unique little new town

0:38:450:38:49

was an unfortunate piece of Georgian vandalism.

0:38:490:38:54

From up here you can see the grid plan of the town.

0:38:570:39:01

At the end of the houses there's a grassy area with massive earthworks,

0:39:010:39:05

remains of something much older built by the Picts.

0:39:050:39:11

The Picts were a mysterious tribe living in this part of Scotland some 2,000 years ago.

0:39:140:39:21

This is one of their most important sites, but it's largely been flattened by the fishing port.

0:39:210:39:29

To get an idea of the scale of the Pictish fort that was here, I've joined archaeologist Fraser Hunter.

0:39:290:39:36

So where exactly are we in this fort?

0:39:380:39:41

Well, this is a mid-18th century map of the site, here's the..

0:39:410:39:45

there's two halves to the site, an upper and lower half,

0:39:450:39:47

and we're standing there.

0:39:470:39:49

On this ridge up the middle.

0:39:490:39:51

This is one of the huge stone-built ramparts

0:39:510:39:53

that divided the upper part of the site.

0:39:530:39:56

These massive banks of earth are all that remain of the Picts' 1,500-year-old fort.

0:39:570:40:04

And then looking across, where are all these?

0:40:070:40:10

Well, underneath those houses, sadly.

0:40:100:40:14

-So it's all gone.

-A whole half is now covered over by the village.

0:40:140:40:18

No wonder the Picts remain such a mystery.

0:40:210:40:24

They ruled large parts of Scotland for centuries,

0:40:240:40:27

but this seat of Pictish power was destroyed to build a fishing port.

0:40:270:40:33

The new town wiped out precious clues to the culture of the Picts,

0:40:350:40:40

but there are some tantalising glimpses of what was lost.

0:40:400:40:46

See up here, the two pentangles?

0:40:460:40:49

Oh, yes, look there and there!

0:40:490:40:51

Those are things you get, again, on a number of pieces of Pictish sculpture.

0:40:510:40:55

If we go on in, gosh, it's enormous!

0:40:550:40:59

-It's fantastic, isn't it?

-Absolutely massive.

0:40:590:41:02

Deeper into the cave, a more grisly discovery in the 1920s - piles of human bones.

0:41:020:41:09

The evidence we have indicates a whole range of odd things going on,

0:41:100:41:14

back into deep pre-history, back into the late Bronze Age and Iron Age, so 3,000, 2,000 years ago

0:41:140:41:19

this cave is being used for special purposes.

0:41:190:41:21

Do you want to come back outside and I'll show you some stuff?

0:41:210:41:25

Back in daylight, Fraser reveals the bones that were buried for so long.

0:41:250:41:31

We have some of the bones from the excavations,

0:41:310:41:34

this is human neck vertebrae.

0:41:340:41:36

Look! It's been chopped.

0:41:360:41:40

-And you think that one's been chopped..

-Ooh!

0:41:400:41:43

Whoever owned that met a very nasty fate.

0:41:430:41:47

It's a beheading, somebody's been decapitated,

0:41:470:41:50

and most of the vertebrae surviving from the site show that, and also a range of people.

0:41:500:41:55

Those two are both adult, but this one is a juvenile.

0:41:550:41:57

Juvenile... It's a grisly place.

0:41:570:42:01

Yeah, a powerful place, a significant place.

0:42:010:42:05

Perhaps this cave is where the Burghead Picts

0:42:050:42:08

butchered their enemies, and even their enemies' children.

0:42:080:42:12

The culture of the Picts remains an enigma.

0:42:150:42:19

Their fort at Burghead was flattened,

0:42:190:42:21

but the few precious artefacts that survive have a real power.

0:42:210:42:26

Wow!

0:42:300:42:31

Oh, fantastic.

0:42:310:42:33

Oh, isn't that amazing?!

0:42:330:42:36

-Absolutely fantastic.

-One of the Burghead bulls.

0:42:370:42:41

Most of them are found long after they've been knocked out of their original settings,

0:42:410:42:45

and many of them, as you can see here, have also been damaged and re-used as building stones.

0:42:450:42:51

It's thought that up to 30 of these bull stones were set into the walls of the fort,

0:42:510:42:56

but only six have survived.

0:42:560:42:58

It's almost a totem or a symbol of this site and its inhabitants.

0:42:580:43:02

The bull stones are a precious connection with the once powerful Picts,

0:43:040:43:11

but who knows how many more of their treasures are buried among the houses of Burghead?

0:43:110:43:17

We're working out way down Scotland's eastern shoreline.

0:43:270:43:30

It's a wonderful contrast to the mountainous west coast.

0:43:320:43:37

Endless beaches stretch down the shore,

0:43:450:43:48

waiting to be explored.

0:43:480:43:49

A long, straight run of sand is interrupted by the oil city of Aberdeen.

0:43:530:43:58

But we're headed a few miles beyond,

0:44:000:44:04

to the little fishing port of Stonehaven.

0:44:040:44:06

On the eve of every New Year, the villagers spend the day preparing for the big night ahead.

0:44:140:44:19

Susan Leiper's one of them.

0:44:190:44:22

Well, tonight in Stonehaven it's Hogmanay,

0:44:220:44:26

it's the night where we swing our fire balls in the high street.

0:44:260:44:30

This will be my tenth year of being a fire-ball swinger, and I absolutely love it.

0:44:300:44:34

So this is what a fireball looks like when it's been made up

0:44:340:44:39

and before it gets lit.

0:44:390:44:40

In this there's old pairs of jeans, cardboard.

0:44:400:44:44

There's bits of newspaper and briquettes.

0:44:440:44:48

This one's about ten pounds in weight, which is heavy enough.

0:44:480:44:52

So at 12 o'clock, the piper starts to march down the road, and the first fire-ball swinger is off.

0:44:530:44:59

That's the point of no return, really.

0:44:590:45:02

This is where it all starts to kick in.

0:45:100:45:13

I'm really, really nervous, every year I'm like this at this point.

0:45:130:45:17

-ALL:

-Five, four, three, two, one...

0:45:180:45:21

Yeah! Whoo-hoo!

0:45:310:45:34

Yay! Whoo-hoo!

0:45:390:45:42

I'm shattered! I've got no energy left!

0:45:430:45:47

And you can feel the atmosphere's absolutely electric, and I just love it, I absolutely love it.

0:45:520:45:58

Yeah! Whoo-hoo!

0:46:000:46:04

Stonehaven may sparkle with fire briefly at the start of each year,

0:46:110:46:16

but this coast is capable of spectacular displays at any time.

0:46:160:46:21

The grey North Sea is famous for its black moods,

0:46:210:46:24

when ferocious storms batter this shore.

0:46:240:46:27

And sometimes they feel the fury in the tiny village of Catterline.

0:46:280:46:33

A little line of houses perches high on the hillside out of the sea's reach,

0:46:340:46:40

but Catterline's most celebrated resident didn't shelter from the storms.

0:46:400:46:44

She embraced the raging water.

0:46:440:46:46

Alice is following in the footsteps of a famous artist.

0:46:490:46:53

I've got a photo here of a lone painter

0:46:570:46:59

working intensely on the shore.

0:46:590:47:01

You can see her facing the sea, which is boiling around the rocks,

0:47:010:47:05

and she's wearing her oilskins with paint pots around her feet

0:47:050:47:09

and some brushes over here.

0:47:090:47:11

And this is a very big canvas, which she must be having to stabilise

0:47:110:47:14

against the wind, and there's her motorbike propped up.

0:47:140:47:18

Now, the artist is Joan Eardley,

0:47:180:47:21

and the photograph was taken of her just here at Catterline.

0:47:210:47:25

Joan Eardley was one of Britain's most important modern artists,

0:47:270:47:31

and she had a long love affair with the shore at Catterline.

0:47:310:47:36

This little cottage was her studio in the 1950s and '60s.

0:47:400:47:44

Locals call it the Watchie.

0:47:440:47:47

The Watchie was Joan's vantage point on the sea

0:47:470:47:50

that so captured her heart.

0:47:500:47:52

To explore the attraction, I'm off to meet a young artist

0:47:520:47:56

who's also fallen under Catterline's subtle spell.

0:47:560:48:00

Anna King continues the tradition Joan Eardley started - women artists coming here to paint.

0:48:000:48:07

-Hello, Anna.

-Hi.

-How's it going?

-Good, thanks.

-Are you feeling inspired?

0:48:070:48:12

-That's lovely, actually.

-Yeah.

0:48:120:48:14

I've got this lovely photo here of Joan facing out to sea and painting this really stormy sea.

0:48:140:48:20

I think she painted everything around Catterline.

0:48:200:48:23

I think she kind of got to know every inch of the village

0:48:230:48:26

and the sea and everything.

0:48:260:48:28

In fact, if you want to have a look at some paintings,

0:48:280:48:30

you can see that's the south row of cottages there.

0:48:300:48:33

That's lovely, that's the row up on the top of the hill, isn't it?

0:48:330:48:36

A bit of a different day from today, with snow on the ground!

0:48:360:48:40

It seems like quite a wild place, it seems that Jane really liked that.

0:48:430:48:47

-These paintings, that one of the sea there...

-It's the wildness of it.

0:48:470:48:51

The sea there is actually coming over this jetty, isn't it?

0:48:510:48:54

So really crashing through.

0:48:540:48:56

So was it Joan herself that first drew you to Catterline?

0:49:000:49:04

I like her paintings and I'd heard of her,

0:49:040:49:06

but it was more the opportunity of getting to stay in the Watchie,

0:49:060:49:10

the wee cottage up there.

0:49:100:49:11

There's nothing to do except paint and make art, so it's pretty good for getting work done.

0:49:110:49:18

The Watchie works for many artists.

0:49:200:49:23

The potential of this special place was first spotted by Joan Eardley in the 1950s.

0:49:230:49:28

There's something about this space

0:49:300:49:32

that inspires canvas after canvas,

0:49:320:49:36

and it's not hard to see why.

0:49:360:49:39

This is a view that Joan Eardley would have been very familiar with,

0:49:390:49:44

and I've got a recording of her voice here that I'm going to listen to.

0:49:440:49:48

'When I'm painting in...in the north east,

0:49:520:49:57

'I hardly ever move out of the village.

0:49:570:50:00

'I hardly ever move from one spot.

0:50:000:50:03

'I do feel that the more you know something, the more you can get out of it, that is the north east.

0:50:030:50:09

'There's just vast waste and vast seas, vast areas of cliff.

0:50:100:50:16

'Well, you've just got to paint it.'

0:50:190:50:21

Joan Eardley painted the violent seascapes of Catterline time and again,

0:50:270:50:32

a love affair that became an obsession.

0:50:320:50:35

She asked her friends in this little coastal village

0:50:370:50:40

to watch for approaching storms, so they could call her in Glasgow,

0:50:400:50:44

and she could jump on her motorbike, dashing to the coast, ready to paint straightaway.

0:50:440:50:49

But she was racing against time.

0:50:500:50:54

In 1963, Joan put on an exhibition of her work in London,

0:50:540:50:59

and it was critically acclaimed, but tragically, just as her fame was blossoming, she herself was dying.

0:50:590:51:06

She'd been diagnosed with breast cancer earlier that year,

0:51:060:51:09

and by August she was dead.

0:51:090:51:12

She was only 42 years old.

0:51:120:51:15

Joan Eardley was cremated and her ashes were scattered here at Catterline,

0:51:190:51:24

but she left us a precious gift.

0:51:240:51:26

Not only do her pictures survive,

0:51:260:51:29

the Watchie, the studio Joan loved,

0:51:290:51:31

is here for artists to discover for themselves

0:51:310:51:34

what it was about Catterline that so captivated Joan.

0:51:340:51:39

For me, it's the extraordinary emptiness that's so striking.

0:51:390:51:45

Maybe that's the inspiration Joan Eardley found here -

0:51:450:51:49

the space to be alone with the elements.

0:51:490:51:52

The stark loneliness of this shoreline is soon swallowed by the mighty River Tay.

0:52:040:52:09

On our journey down the east coast, we've reached Dundee.

0:52:120:52:16

This city's links with its proud industrial past

0:52:160:52:20

are measured out in bridges...

0:52:200:52:22

..and ships.

0:52:240:52:26

Discovery, the ship that took Scott to the Antarctic in 1901.

0:52:260:52:30

But I've come to rekindle an old passion of my own.

0:52:320:52:36

How about this?

0:52:390:52:41

Not a lighthouse, but a lightship.

0:52:410:52:43

Now that's a bright idea.

0:52:430:52:46

The North Carr lightship looks like a boat with a big light plonked onto the top,

0:52:480:52:53

but below deck there's something missing.

0:52:530:52:56

This is a ship with no propeller and no engine to drive on, either.

0:52:560:53:01

The ship spent months anchored off the coast of Fife, manned by a crew of 11.

0:53:010:53:06

Imagine 11 sea dogs moored at sea in this thing, an oversized tin can.

0:53:090:53:16

They kept the light burning, and no doubt saved countless lives.

0:53:160:53:21

But on December 8th 1959, this lightship wasn't saving lives.

0:53:220:53:27

It was claiming them.

0:53:270:53:29

As the east coast was lashed by terrible blizzards,

0:53:290:53:32

the anchor chain that had held the North Carr fast for so long snapped.

0:53:320:53:37

The lightship herself was heading for disaster on the very rocks she was there to warn against.

0:53:390:53:44

The crew sent out a mayday.

0:53:440:53:46

The lifeboat Mona responded to the distress call.

0:53:490:53:53

She battled her way through enormous waves,

0:53:530:53:56

attempting to save the lightship and the 11 men trapped on board.

0:53:560:54:00

But that lifeboat, the Mona, never reached the lightship or the men sheltering inside her.

0:54:020:54:08

Come daybreak, the crew aboard here had survived,

0:54:080:54:12

but the bodies of seven of the lifeboat men were found washed up on a nearby beach.

0:54:120:54:16

The body of the eighth lifeboat man was never found.

0:54:160:54:20

The North Carr lightship eventually finished service in 1975 and was moored permanently here in Dundee.

0:54:240:54:32

She leaves me with mixed feelings.

0:54:340:54:37

No doubt the North Carr saved lives,

0:54:370:54:40

but she also cost lives.

0:54:400:54:41

As the coast turns a corner into the wide waters of the Firth of Forth,

0:54:480:54:52

we're approaching our destination, Edinburgh.

0:54:520:54:56

Famously the financial heart of Scotland, much of the city's wealth

0:55:000:55:04

has been built on sea trade and in former days shipbuilding,

0:55:040:55:08

where the capital embraces the water at the docks of Leith.

0:55:080:55:12

Engineering excellence spilled out of Edinburgh along its shore.

0:55:140:55:19

The mighty rail bridge has become a global symbol for the city.

0:55:190:55:23

But there's a less well-known engineering innovation from these parts

0:55:250:55:29

that's had a huge impact worldwide.

0:55:290:55:32

Just over 200 years ago, the world's first practical steamboat was being invented not far from here.

0:55:320:55:39

In 1803, this coal-fired boat, the Charlotte Dundas,

0:55:410:55:46

became the first steamer powerful enough to pull more than her own weight.

0:55:460:55:51

This was the boat that launched the Steam Age.

0:55:510:55:54

Now goods and people could be transported faster and further than ever before,

0:55:580:56:04

and there are some who still keep their steam heritage alive.

0:56:040:56:08

Permission to come aboard?

0:56:080:56:10

Yes, certainly!

0:56:100:56:11

Tom Peebles built the Talisker himself.

0:56:110:56:14

Those early pioneers of the Steam Age would be at home onboard.

0:56:140:56:18

What is it for you, or for anyone, about steam? What's the draw?

0:56:250:56:30

It's kind of hard to describe it, but you know when something

0:56:300:56:35

gets you going,

0:56:350:56:37

and steam, the smell of the engine, the coal, the whole thing.

0:56:370:56:41

You can feel, smell and hear everything that goes on.

0:56:410:56:45

They won't go without a lot of attention

0:56:450:56:47

and a kiss and a cuddle at night before you go away.

0:56:470:56:50

-That's entirely between you and your boat!

-Yes!

0:56:510:56:54

WHISTLE TOOTS

0:56:570:56:59

We've almost come full circle, after a 400-mile journey around and through Scotland,

0:57:010:57:07

to end up off the coast of Edinburgh,

0:57:070:57:10

only 40 miles from Glasgow, where we started.

0:57:100:57:12

Connecting great cities with wild frontiers,

0:57:160:57:19

uniting west and east coasts,

0:57:190:57:23

it's the engineering feats of the people who lived on these shores that made that journey possible.

0:57:230:57:28

From the vast Queen Mary...

0:57:310:57:34

..to the irrepressible puffers,

0:57:350:57:39

via the audacious Caledonian Canal

0:57:390:57:43

to this wee speedster.

0:57:430:57:46

My journey began with steam, and it ends with steam.

0:57:460:57:52

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:57:550:57:58

E-mail [email protected]

0:57:580:58:01

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